ORLANDO, Fla. — Google is expediting the shutdown of its Google+ social media platform after the discovery of a bug that revealed personal info for millions of users.

  • New bug revealed personal info for 52.5 million Google+ users
  • Google does not believe anything was misused
  • Google+ will now shut down April 2019

Google announced in a blog post Monday that the company recently discovered a bug in a software update for Google+ API, which are the protocols for allowing applications to work on websites. 

As a result personal information for some 52.5 million users was made available to third-party developers, including information that was not meant to be viewable by the public.

Google said it fixed the problem within a week of it being introduced, and the company does not believe any third party companies were aware of having this access, or misused it.

Google says it will now shut down the Google+ API in the next 90 days, and bump up the shutdown of Google+ to April 2019, from August 2019.